


The Green Eyed Monster (or, The Pajama Party Pooper)

by speccygeekgrrl



Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: Boneheads - Freeform, Complicated Relationships, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Live show spoilers, Nail Painting, Pajamas & Sleepwear, Season 12 spoilers, Shoulder rubs, Spa Treatments, girls night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 20:54:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17148926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speccygeekgrrl/pseuds/speccygeekgrrl
Summary: Synthia concocts the idea of a Girls' Night type bonding activity for the women of Moon 13 and passes the planning on to Gabby, who is good at getting people to agree to do things. It's a pajama party with pedicures and a predictable pop of drama given the guest list, but everyone has fun... or almost everyone.





	The Green Eyed Monster (or, The Pajama Party Pooper)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smitshappens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smitshappens/gifts).



> I love writing Boneheads and I'm not sorry at all about it. Ray is still my favorite OC of all time. Also an excuse to write more Donna and Synthia? How could I pass that up?
> 
> This fic is meant to be a big cup of cocoa with lots of marshmallows in text form. I hope it is sweet and warming and yummy.

Synthia had taken it upon herself to start Girls' Night on Moon 13 as a sort of bonding event between the various ladies involved in the revival of the experiment, but she quickly passed it over to Gabby when she discovered that it was a pain in the ass trying to recruit guys to wait on them hand and foot while they had a pajama party spa night. Gabby had a much more convincing touch with the kinder, gentler men of the Moon, and managed to get Jonah, Max, Ray, and Terry to agree to tend to them while they relaxed. The holiday season was still stressful even if it wasn't weighted with religious implications on the highly atheistic moon, and by the time the appointed evening a few nights before Christmas rolled around, the women who gathered were all desperately in need of some R&R. 

Gabby and Lady were there first to get everything set up: the comfy chairs, the variety of nail polish colors gathered up from nearly every gal who intended to participate, the luscious snacks Ed had agreed to bake for their gathering, epsom salts for foot soaks and minty scented lotion for foot rubs, and the assortment of holiday candles set up and lit on most of the flat surfaces in the room. Smitty showed up a few minutes later with the softest towels she could commandeer from the laundry room, plus a couple of small basins usually used for things that needed to be hand laundered for the ladies to soak their feet in, and the Bonehead girls had a quiet and giggly conference about how they thought the night would go while showing off their pajamas. Lady was wearing a long nightgown and bunny slippers, Gabby sported a plush cranberry two piece with glitter stars and knitted green boots, and Smitty was decked out in a blue unicorn kigurumi with a sparkly horn and hoof-feeties.

"Kinga's going to yell," Lady said. "Dollars to donuts she screams at someone within 30 minutes."

"Five donuts says she yells at Max _and_ Jonah within 15 minutes," Gabby said.

"I bet she kicks someone," Smitty said, and Lady and Gabby both nodded.

"That's on brand for her," Lady said. "She kicks a lot anyways, at least it'll hurt less if she's got bare feet."

Cherry carried in a box laden with wine bottles and set it down on the table next to the tasty treats with a thump. Her Hello Kitty pajamas were trimmed in pastel pink marabou. "Do we have to wait for everyone to show up or can we start busting these open now?" she asked, twiddling a corkscrew between two fingers. "Cause I'm thirsty."

"Have at it," Gabby said. "Might as well get the party started, right?" Synthia and Donna, respectively in a plush green robe and a dragon kigurumi, walked in while Cherry was doling out wine into festive plastic cups. Donna made a beeline for the booze, looking so stressed out that Cherry splashed a bit more into her cup.

"You look like you've had a long day," Cherry said sympathetically.

"More like a long several months," Donna sighed, and took a sip. Her brows shot up. "Ohh, this is good. I haven't had a decent rose in far too long."

"Yeah, Cherry knows her stuff," Synthia said, accepting a cup of her own with a deep nod. 

"I pride myself on the booziest booze that ever did booze," Cherry said. "Bottoms up, ladies." Cups were clinked and wine was quaffed. 

“You didn't wait for me?” Kinga whined, walking in while everyone was mid-sip. Cherry quickly handed her a bright green cup, but instead of drinking Kinga just held it and looked around the room. She was wearing a comically oversized green flannel nightshirt over purple yoga pants. “What exactly is going on here?” She narrowed her eyes at the Boneheads suspiciously, and Smitty blinked and pushed her glasses up nervously.

“Moon 13 pop-up spa,” Gabby said, waving at the table they’d set out all the pretty and pleasant smelling things on. “We’re having Girls’ Night. It was Synthia’s idea.”

“I knew about the Girls’ Night, I thought it was a pajama party, not a spa. So we’re, what, doing face masks and each others’ nails?”

“Not exactly.” Kinga whirled at the voice behind her to find Jonah coming through the door, followed by Ray, and Max and Terry a few seconds behind them. “Everyone’s here already, sorry we’re late.” Max narrowed his eyes when he caught sight of Kinga, plucking at the hem of his They Might Be Giants t-shirt with irritation. Ray was proudly showing off his newly resized panda kigurumi, having had it amended after discovering it was eight inches too short when it arrived. Terry wore a Skeleton Crew shirt with all the band as cartoons, their first real merch that had been designed by Smitty, who beamed when she caught sight of him. Jonah was wearing galaxy print pajamas with an applique Backjack across the chest pocket.

“You’re right on time, actually,” Synthia said. 

“Thanks for coming, guys,” Gabby said, waving them in. “Okay, ladies… these fine gentleman have agreed to give pedicures to anyone who wants them and shoulder rubs to anyone who prefers those, and we also have face masks made out of like, snail goop and colloidal gold, they’re super neat and restorative. Plus Cherry’s fantastic wine and Ed’s confections. Get ready to relax.”

“I’m more than ready,” Donna said into the edge of her drink, and Jonah shot her a sympathetic look across the room, clearly enchanted by the riot of curls spilling out of her dragon hood around her face. She lowered her drink and added, a little more loudly, “It’s not _snail goop_ , it’s snail mucin. I have a giant mollusk on the Ark-3 that emits a surprisingly useful mucin, it’s quite interesting really. I’ll try one of those masks.”

“You could learn how to make your own,” Jonah said. “Break into the Korean beauty market, you’ll make bank.” Donna laughed and snorted a little, and Jonah smiled at her. Kinga looked from Donna to Jonah and back, a sneer curling her lip, and snapped her fingers.

“Heston! I want _you_ to give me a foot rub.”

“Not me?” Max asked, equal parts hurt and relief in his voice. “I thought—”

“Not you,” she said impatiently. “Go do something else. Jonah!” 

Jonah shrugged laconically and ambled over to Kinga, looking down at her with a hint of that smile remaining. “Take a seat, I guess,” he suggested. “Did you want a nail color?”

“No. But you better be good at foot rubs.” She sat down at one of the chairs with a basin of hot water at its foot, hauled her pant legs up and stuck her feet in the water, humming at the warmth.

Max blinked a couple of times and then smiled, not having expected to be left to his own devices, and walked over to where Gabby, Lady, and Smitty were standing, looking through nail polish colors. “Looks like I'm at your disposal,” he said. Gabby turned with a smile and tugged the hem of his shirt. Ray followed him over, pulling at his own sleeve and beaming at Smitty. 

“I like your pajamas,” he said. She tilted her head back to smile up at him, and he strategically slouched to bring himself down to her level. “I like the sparkly horn.” 

“I like it too,” she said. “Yours fits right now?” 

“Like a dream!” He held out one arm and the sleeve still covered his wrist. “Thanks, I love it. Can I give you a pedicure? I know you're on your feet a lot.”

“That would be nice,” she said, and handed him a rainbow glitter polish. “What do you think?” 

“I think I want this on my nails too,” Ray said. 

“You do mine and I'll do yours?” 

“Deal!” 

“I want to do the snail mask first,” Lady said, reaching for one of the packages to look at it. Donna tilted the box she'd picked up and nodded. 

“My skincare routine isn't this complex,” she said, showing the whole twelve steps of the routine printed on it. “My skincare routine is more like, don't let anything lick me on the face and always wash off the dander at the end of the day.” 

“What's your giant mollusk's name?” Lady asked, and Donna beamed. 

“Her name is Regina. She’s a remarkable creature, lives in the black and white habitat. Here…” She pulled out her phone and started scrolling through photos, Lady leaning in and squeaking at what was on the screen.

“What is _that_?”

“Oh, that’s the crawling eye, they share the habitat! Here, look at them playing together…”

Terry had come up to Synthia as soon as he’d come into the room, and she smiled up at him and offered him her cup. “Try this. It’s really good,” she said. His eyes widened when he took a sip.

“Yeah, it is,” he agreed, and she took it back. “Way to go, Cherry.”

“It’s not too sweet, is it? I tried to keep it crisp,” Cherry said, refilling her own cup. 

“No, it’s great,” Synthia said. “You did a good job. What’s this one called?”

“Arsenic and Bone Lace,” Cherry said. 

“Classic,” Terry said. “So who’s up for what?”

“I’m gonna raid the sweets while everyone else is busy,” Cherry said. “I don’t really want snail on my face.”

“Fair,” Terry said. “Synth?” 

“I’ll take a shoulder rub, thanks,” Synthia said, and Terry waved her toward a chair. “I missed you while I was on tour, you know.”

“I promise you, not as much as I missed you,” he said. “Things were really weird around here for a while when you were gone.”

“Well, yeah, you got a reprieve from Kinga. How did that go anyways?”

“Well, we democratically elected the first president of Moon 13 and established a functioning government about a week after she and Max went missing, but the power went to Ardy’s head and we had to stage a coup after three weeks and settled on a more coalition-style leadership structure. And then a week after that we found out what happened to them… and a week after that we rescued them.”

“You left them there for an extra week?” Synthia whispered, eyes darting in the direction of Kinga almost at the other side of the room before her head tilted back to look up at him. “That’s so diabolical.”

“Well, Gabby checked their theater data, and it seemed like it was actually doing them both some psychological good. It wasn’t a total jerkass move.”

One chair over, Gabby wiggled her toes in the water as it fizzed with a bath bomb and looked back at Max rubbing her shoulders. “I am sorry about that,” she said. “I wanted to pull you out, but when we figured out where you were we figured out what you were being shown in what order, and we couldn’t let you out before the emotional catharsis of I Accuse My Parents.”

“I don’t hold it against you,” Max said. “I feel like I’ve been through riffing boot camp. It was exhausting and a trial but I feel like a better person for going through it.” 

“That’s the spirit,” Gabby said, reaching up to pat one of his hands. “I don’t like this place as much without you around. Don’t make me have to spring you out of any other traps, okay?”

“I really hope Jonah feels like he’s gotten an adequate amount of revenge,” Max said. “We’ve done more riffing than he has, at this point.” He wrapped one of her curls around his finger and tugged gently. “I think it’s at the point where we’re getting revenge on him for his revenge.”

“Caught in a twisted game of cat and also cat… two sides of the Gizmocrat legacy locked in perpetual struggle,” Gabby said dramatically. 

“I don’t know about all that,” Max said, and Gabby’s laughter drew Kinga’s eye with a bitter look.

“What are you doing?” Kinga snapped, none too gently kicking Jonah’s knee with one wet foot when she turned her attention back to him. “Have you ever done this before? You’re so bad at it.”

“Yes,” Jonah said, more than a little irritated with her already. “Stop _wiggling_.”

“Stop tickling me!”

“I’m not tickling you!”

“Stop _touching_ me, then!” 

“Gladly!” Jonah let go of the foot that didn’t kick him and sat back on his heels. “There’s nothing I can do if that tickles. You’re oversensitive.”

“No one gets away with telling me I’m oversensitive,” she said with another kick. “If Max can do it right how come you can’t?”

“I don’t know why you’re having me do this and not Max,” Jonah said. “I mean, you’re wearing his pajamas. I thought the two of you worked your thing out before the Gauntlet. What’s going on?”

“Shut up,” Kinga said, glancing back down the row and snarling at the sight of Max giggling at something Gabby said. “It’s none of your business.”

“Do you want me to get you another cup of wine?” Jonah said a little more gently. “Or something to nibble on while you soak your feet?”

“Do that,” she snapped, and Jonah walked away from her with a sense of relief, aiming his curious glance at the friendly interaction between the second banana and the most talkative Bonehead as he passed them. He almost tripped over Ray’s legs in his distraction, and Ray yelped as his hand jerked and spread glitter polish across Smitty’s toes.

“Oops,” he said, wiping the polish off with his thumb. “Sorry about that. So, we’ve gone through four yarn types with the yarn bombs, I don’t see any reason cashmere wouldn’t work! It’d just be expensive to load.”

“Don’t worry about sourcing the yarn,” Smitty said. “I have a friend who can figure that out. But you really think it could make a whole pair of pajamas from one bomb?” 

“Well,” Ray said, “probably not on me or Jonah, but almost definitely on you. We’ve even figured out how to program patterns in!”

“That would be so luxurious,” she said dreamily. “This kigu is cozy, but sometimes you just want something you can pull on, you know?” 

“I don’t know, I could live in this thing,” Ray said, reaching up to tug the panda hood over his forehead with a grin. “Now that it fits right.”

“Well, I had to thank you for saving my life, a little seamstressing was a small price all things considered. I’m glad I could help!” Ray carefully painted her last toe and she wiggled all ten of them. “Oh, they’re so sparkly, this is great. You want me to do your toenails?”

“No, my fingernails,” Ray said, handing her the bottle of polish and putting his big hands on her knees. “I want to see them shine, I don’t want them stuck under my boots.”

“Sure thing,” Smitty said, wielding the tiny brush with an artist’s precision while Ray watched her with wide eyes. “Maybe you’ll start a trend.”

“I’m not really a trendsetter, am I?”

“You should be… you’re pretty cool,” she said playfully. “You’re not usual, but in a really good way.”

“Thank you!” Ray sounded genuinely touched. 

Jonah walked back past everyone to deliver Kinga’s wine and treats and she scowled up at him. “Now go away,” she said, so Jonah shrugged and walked over to where Lady and Donna were wearing the snail masks stuck to their faces and still looking through Donna’s photos of her monstrous charges. Donna’s glasses were up on the top of her head, tangled in her curls and smudged with snail goop, and Jonah plucked them out of the riot and pulled a microfiber cloth out of his pajama pocket to clean them off.

“Oh, hello,” Donna said, blinking up at him. “Here, you saw the brain so often while we were on tour, tell Lady that it wasn’t as terrible as it looked.”

“It wasn’t as terrible as it looked,” Jonah said. “It was about sixty percent worse than it looked. I had to keep restaurant salt packets in my pockets in case it got out of its cage.”

“You did not,” Donna said, “oh, you liar, tell her the truth!” 

“It grew on me,” Jonah said with a laugh. “By the end of the tour I almost felt like it wouldn’t try to kill me if I let my guard down.” 

“I would have been so scared,” Lady said. “I would be so scared dealing with so many of the things you take care of. You must be really brave.”

“I don’t know if I’d call it bravery, so much as a robust sense of appreciation for severely misunderstood creatures,” Donna said. “But being a severely misunderstood creature myself…”

“You’re not that hard to understand,” Jonah said, looking through Donna’s glasses at the light and then hooking them in the collar of her kigu for safekeeping. “Or at least, I thought we got each other pretty well on tour.” 

“Well… being forced to do it wasn’t as horrible with you there too,” Donna said, and Lady very poorly restrained an _aww_. Donna turned to lean with her back against Jonah’s chest, her blush thoroughly hidden by the mask, and tipped her head back to look up at him. “It was almost fun sometimes.”

“Yeah, it was,” Jonah said, and they smiled at each other for a moment. “Do you want me to rub your shoulders?”

“Yes _please_ , I’ve missed that since we got off the tour bus.” 

A sound like a furious cat made everyone in the room look over. Kinga rose from her chair and stomped over to the refreshments table, took an entire bottle of wine, stomped her way past everyone on her way out, and slammed the door behind her.

“Uhh….” Synthia leaned forward to look down the line of chairs. “What the hell just happened?”

“She’s mad at herself,” Max said. “And, you know, definitely me and Gabby and Jonah and probably Donna, with a pretty decent chance of everyone else in the room getting caught in it.” 

“Should someone go after her?” Lady asked very trepidatiously, and Max sighed heavily.

“By someone you mean me, right?”

“Well, I mean, it should be someone who knows how to deal with her…”

“I don’t really feel like offering myself to be eviscerated.”

“What happens if no one goes after her?” Donna asked. “Aside from her hating us all forever?”

“She already hates most of us,” Gabby said. 

“Educated guess?” Everyone nodded, and Max went on. “She kills that bottle by herself, wakes up hungover, brews her resentment until the Christmas party in three days, and takes it out on at least a couple of us if not the entire party.”

“Yikes,” Ray said. “And what happens if someone besides you goes after her?”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” Max said. He sighed again. “Fine, I know what my duty is. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” He patted Gabby’s shoulder and headed for the door. “Don’t have too much fun without me,” he said on his way out.

“Well, that’s a bummer,” Cherry said, occupying the chair Kinga had abandoned. “She took the last bottle of rose. All that’s left is the Grimdark.”

“Then it’s the perfect time for Max to have left the room,” Gabby said. “Cause that makes him mopey.” 

“I think he’s gonna be mopey tonight regardless,” Donna said. 

“Not necessarily,” Gabby said. “They’ve been on better terms since they got stuck in the theater together. He might be able to bring her up before she brings him down.” She took her feet out of the water and wrapped them in a towel, then stuck them back in her knitted boots. “Whatever happens with them, there’s nothing any of us in here can do about it now. So I am going to crack open that Grimdark myself. Anyone else want some?”

“Yo,” Synthia said, holding up her empty cup.

“I’ll have a splash,” Donna said. 

“Yes please,” Lady said. 

“Can I have some too?” Ray asked, and Gabby came over with a cup that he took with a very sparkly hand. 

“Super stylish, Raygun,” she said, and Smitty poked him with an equally sparkly toe.

“What did I tell you? You’ll be a trendsetter.”


End file.
